Draft:Ram Das
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Submission declined on 28 August 2026 by Accesscrawl (talk).
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Ram Das (fl. 1777–1782) was a Hindu artist[1] from India who was most well-known for his contributions to the Impey Album and as one of the first artists that helped create the Anglo-Indian "Company Style" of painting.[1] Ram Das was one of three prominent Indian artists commissioned by Lady Mary Impey in Calcutta during the British Raj while the British East India Company controlled much of India and Pakistan.[2]
His work, along with that of his notable contemporaries Bhawani Das and Shaikh Zain-al-Din, combined Mughal painting techniques with Western botanical illustration methods.[3] Their paintings became some of the earliest examples of the style later known as Company style.[2][3]
Career
[edit]In the late eighteenth century, Ram Das was one of three notable local artists who had been commissioned Lady Mary Impey, the wife of Sir Elijah Impey, who served as Chief Justice of the Calcutta Supreme Court.[3] Before moving to Calcutta to participate in what became known as the Calcutta School, Shaikh Zain-al-Din, Bhawani Das, and Ram Das had all trained at the Mughal atelier in the city of Patna.[1]
Between 1774 and 1782, Lady Mary Impey commissioned these local artists to create detailed illustrations of India's indigenous fauna and flora.[2] An English noblewoman and naturalist, Lady Impey had collected an impressive aviary and menagerie while living in Calcutta and wanted to document the country's native wildlife and plant life.[4] The collection of local artist that she commissioned to create an extensive collection of zoological illustrations became known as the Calcutta School.[2]
The artists associated with the Calcutta School produced more than 300 works, with birds comprising more than half of the collection.[5] The collection would later be known as the Impey Album. These exceptionally detailed illustrations accurately represented the animals' biological features, while Lady Mary Impey maintained extensive records documenting the habitats and behaviour of the species depicted.[6][4] These written observations, together with the zoological illustrations produced by Ram Das and other artists, later provided valuable material for European naturalists.[6][7] The English ornithologist Dr. John Latham, for example, referenced the Impey Album when he identified and named several new species from the depictions created by artists at the Calcutta School in his supplement to A General Synopsis of Birds (1787).[6][7][8]
The unique aesthetic created by artists at the Calcutta School would eventually morph into the artistic tradition known today as the Company painting style.[9] This artistic style was reflective of the cultural exchange that defined the British Indian colonies during the late 18th and 19th centuries.[9] The Indian subcontinent had been a crossroads for many different cultures for a very long time, but during the British Raj, this became especially pronounced.[9] Paintings in the Company style show the exchange between traditional Indian, Islamic, and Western artistic traditions.[9] Artists from Lucknow, the Mughal tradition, Maharashtra, Punjab, the Pahari regions, Tamil Nadu, and Telugu-speaking regions contributed to this diverse body of work.[9] They brought with them distinct blend of styles that combined influences of their home cultures to the works they would create at the Calcutta School, such as the Mughal style of miniature painting and Pahari-influenced composition and detail.[9] These techniques were combined with the sensibilities, subject matters, materials, style, palates, and preferences that their wealthy colonial patrons would appreciate.[1][9][10]
Artists from the Calcutta School primarily worked on Whatman art paper, which was manufactured in England.[11] They also used opaque pigments and ink on paper, and most illustrations in this style did not feature a detailed background.[1] Most works in the Company style featured watercolour pigments, rather than gouache, and use techniques that were influenced by European botanical art, such as linear perspective and heavy shadows.[1][2][10]
Exhibitions
[edit]Art created by the Calcutta School has been scattered worldwide. Pieces by Ram Das are currently held in several places, such as the Ashmolean Museum,[11] and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.[12]
References
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Grey Heron", c. 1780–82, Ram Das, Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession number 2018.53.11, accessed 25 August 2026, Minneapolis Institute of Art.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Christie's (2008) "A pair of Yellow-footed Green Pigeons, Treron phoenicoptera". West ~ East: The Niall Hobhouse Collection, Live Auction 7586, Lot 18, Lot Essay. London: Christie's, 22 May 2008. Christie's Lot 18 and Lot Essay (accessed 24 August 2026).
- 1 2 3 Verma, Rahul (11 February 2020). "Rediscovering India's Forgotten Masterpieces". BBC. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- 1 2 Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. "Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art". jameelcentre.ashmolean.org. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
- ↑ Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York New Haven [Conn.]: Metropolitan Museum of Art Distributed by Yale University Press. 2011. ISBN 978-1-58839-434-7.
- 1 2 3 Walden, Arthur Viscount (1870-06-01). "XLVIII.—Descriptions of some new species of birds from Southern Asia". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 5 (30): 416–418. doi:10.1080/00222937008696188. ISSN 0374-5481.
- 1 2 Latham, John. A General History of Birds. Vol. VIII. 1823. Accessed 24 August 2026. Online PDF
- ↑ Sawyer, F. C. (1949-09-07). "Notes on some original drawings of birds used by dr. john latham". Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. 2 (5): 173–180. doi:10.3366/jsbnh.1949.2.5.173. ISSN 0037-9778.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Heather (2020-02-15). "COMPANY SCHOOL PAINTING". Asian Art Newspaper. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
- 1 2 Sardar, Marika. "Company Painting in Nineteenth-Century India - The Metropolitan Museum of Art". www.metmuseum.org. Archived from the original on 2026-04-18. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
- 1 2 Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. "Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art". jameelcentre.ashmolean.org. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
- ↑ "Art of Ram Das in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art". Collections at Minneapolis Institute of Art. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
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